Entry #5 of the Axie team’s Lab Log covers two games. Atia’s Legacy is getting ready for a Steam release and adding multiplayer PvE. Terrariums is running its first limited-time event while the team builds Hosted Land Plots, a system that lets landowners and axie owners share a single plot.
Both games have changed since Entry #4. Atia’s Legacy opened PvP to players, and Terrariums launched, which means collections now feed Atia’s Flame. According to the team, everything in this entry is a work in progress. Features, designs and timing could change during testing, and a preview is no promise of a release.
Atia’s Legacy is heading to Steam
A few months have passed since the last Atia’s Legacy playtest. With the Steam release, the team hopes to reach players outside the Axie community, so it is building for two audiences at once: longtime Lunacians and Steam players who have never owned an axie. Alongside new content, work is under way on the interface, onboarding and PC performance, so newcomers can learn the game fast and find reasons to return.
The game’s Steam page is the next milestone, and the next playtest opens at the same time.
New enemies, maps and bosses
Previous playtests included both PvE and PvP, and the team says each mode has to carry enough depth to stand by itself. On the PvE side, that begins with a bigger roster of enemies. The art team has drawn up new enemy concepts for Lunacia. Each design is placed in the world for testing, and the team then decides which ones to keep.
Work is also happening on new maps and bosses, so encounters can challenge players in a wider range of ways. The team calls this material concept art and in-development designs, and warns that some of it may change or never ship.
Loadouts
Players asked for loadouts more than almost anything else in earlier playtests, and the feature is now in development. In the current prototype, up to five gear presets can be saved. Players can prepare builds in advance and swap between them from one screen, with no need to reshuffle equipment in the middle of a session.
First look at multiplayer PvE
So far, players have cleared dungeons alone and faced each other in the arena. Multiplayer PvE puts them on the same team, turning dungeons and boss encounters into shared challenges.
The first footage shows PangoLord, a boss designed for parties of three. The clip also shows the new PC interface, which was built alongside these encounters for the PC release. The footage is from an early build, and the team says the encounter, the multiplayer experience, the interface and the visuals are all still in testing. It has asked players which bosses they would like to fight together and which role they would play in a party.
Terrariums: the first limited-time event
The first limited-time Terrariums event runs through November 7. While it is live, Nightmare axies and accessories add extra Atia’s Flame.
The event is also the team’s first trial of a rotating meta. Until now, building a strong lineup has mostly come down to the same familiar Flame contributors. A temporary boost shakes that up, so an axie or accessory that players had ignored may now earn a slot. The team wants to find out whether different parts, collections or body types could take turns in the spotlight. Players who own wider collections get more choices every time the boost shifts.
Once the event wraps on November 7, the team will go through the data and player feedback before deciding whether to run the format again, tweak it or expand it.
Hosted Land Plots
Some Lunacians have land but too few axies to fill it. Others have axies and nowhere to place them. Hosted Land Plots is designed to bring those two groups together. In the concept the team is exploring, a landowner opens a plot to guests, and the guests’ axies add Atia’s Flame to it. The host takes a share of the plot’s rewards for supplying the land, and the guests divide the remainder according to how much Flame each contributes.
Here is the planned flow as the team lays it out:
- Hosts open a plot, set their host share and pick how guests are able to join.
- Hosts can check each request by hand or set auto-accept rules, for example a minimum Flame contribution.
- Hosts can generate an invite code and send it straight to a friend or guildmate.
- Guests can browse hosted plots, compare the terms on offer and apply to one that suits their collection.
Still to be settled are how hosts and guests might split costs and the detailed rules for taking part. The team is aiming for a November 12 window and says final mechanics will be confirmed before launch, with more details to follow.
The team sums up this entry as more ways for Lunacians to get involved. Atia’s Legacy is growing for current players and newcomers, while Terrariums is rotating which collections receive a boost and opening land up to shared play. Entry #6 is the next scheduled update.